Bruce Springsteen

On his first recordings, Bruce Springsteen lived up to his unenviable billing as the "new Dylan" by rivalling his hero's propensity for dense, colourful, extended wordplay and imagery.

Over the next decade and culminating in the seismic best-seller Born In The U.S.A., Springsteen toned down the verbiage, streamlined the arrangements and aimed his messages squarely at the men and women caught in the wheels of life's daily grind. Oh, yeah, he liked to write about cars, too.

Heralded for his tireless rock 'n' roll shows that bore a certain resemblance to revival meetings, The Boss could also pen soul-stirring ballads, and his contribution to the Philadelphia soundtrack, 1994's Street's Of Philadelphia, was a moody masterpiece, earning Springsteen an Oscar and four Grammy Awards.